


though the truth may vary, this ship will carry our bodies safe to shore

by deandratb



Category: One Day at a Time (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, Mild Angst, but mostly fluff and feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-02-27 03:42:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18730990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deandratb/pseuds/deandratb
Summary: Prompt fic; Penelope and Schneider are ready to tell the family they're dating. Not every member of the family is ready to hear it.





	though the truth may vary, this ship will carry our bodies safe to shore

**Author's Note:**

> Anonymous prompt: **Pen telling Lydia and the kids about her and Schneider being in a relationship + “You’re not good enough for her. I’m sorry, but you’re just not.”**

Penelope knew that however they broke the news, they would have to tell her  _Mami_ first. If Lydia found out anyone knew before she did, that would become the entire story–she was already guaranteed to be annoyed that they had kept it a secret for two weeks.

Beyond that, she wasn’t sure what to expect. Her  _Mami_ had been trying to adopt Schneider for years now, so that might be a little weird…but while she knew Schneider was terrified of what Lydia would say, Penelope was more worried about the kids.

The divorce and being single again was one thing. Her dating Schneider was much more complicated.

She couldn’t blame Alex if it freaked him out. And Elena might whip out feminist statistics in support, or she could just as easily take offense over some turn of phrase–Penelope never knew what might be coming her way from her eldest anymore, but she usually ended up confused.

While part of her would have been happy to keep sneaking around, and avoid the drama entirely, Penelope was ready to face reality.

They had been on three official dates, plus the first one that only sort-of-counted in her book, since she hadn’t realized it was a date until Schneider kissed her goodnight.

But it wasn’t like she and Schneider had just met--though this stage of their relationship might be new, what they felt for each other wasn’t.

As soon as they’d broken the news to the family, Penelope was going to rip off the next Band-Aid and tell Schneider she was in love with him. She didn’t need more time to sort out her feelings, and it was dumb to worry about scaring him off. This was  _Schneider;_  he told her he loved her at least once a week, even before they started dating.

_But first, this._ She let Schneider in on Saturday morning and waited while her  _Mami_ poured his coffee.

He took a seat next to Penelope on the couch, and she raised her voice over the music in the kitchen. “ _Mami,_  can you bring your coffee out here? We have something to tell you.”

Lydia half-walked, half-salsaed her way to them without spilling a drop of her coffee, gracefully settling into the chair next to Schneider.

“What is it, Lupita?”

“Well.” She hesitated, and turned to him. He patted her leg reassuringly. 

Lydia’s eyes darted between them, widening over the mug in her hands. “Oh…”

“Schneider and I,  _Mami_ , we’re-”

“Dating.” She nodded sagely, then aimed a finger at her daughter. “I knew it.”

“You did?”

“ _Si._ I knew you were keeping a secret, Lupita. I just didn’t know what it was. And I did think maybe, when Schneider took you to see that Marvel America movie…I could see something was different.”

Penelope looked at Schneider, at a loss for words. They had seen Captain Marvel together more than a month ago–just as friends. But since they were dating now, arguing over the details didn’t seem worth the trouble.

She could let her  _Mami_ have this one. Schneider’s little head tilt told Penelope that he agreed.

After all, Lydia had a mother’s intuition. If she saw what was there before they had admitted it to themselves, it wouldn’t be so surprising.

“You got us,  _Mami._ We didn’t want to tell you until we knew it was serious.”

“And is it–serious?”

Schneider jumped in to answer, sincerity filling his words.

“Yes. Penelope and I…we’re exclusive.”

****

Ideally, they would have told Elena and Alex at the same time, but Elena’s debate team meeting kept her at school past dinner that night.

She and Schneider were waiting when Alex walked in the door.

Even with his eyes glued to his phone– _while walking, how did he do that without falling on his face?_ –her son was good at reading a room. He froze just inside the apartment as soon as he felt them watching him.

“Oh, god, what did I do? The school called you, didn’t they?”

“No.” Penelope frowned. “Should they have? What  **did**  you do?”

“Nothing!”

“Alex, you’re not in trouble. Not at the moment, anyway, but if I get a call from St. Bibiana’s you’re going to wish–”

Schneider bumped her shoulder with his, and she let out a slow breath.  _Right. Not today._

“We’re not here to talk about that. But we do have something to talk to you about.”

He sat in the chair closest to her, sparing Schneider a glance that was only mildly curious. Some days Penelope was certain that she could light her hair on fire and her newest teenager wouldn’t even blink.

“What’s up?”

“Well…I guess I don’t know how to say it except to just say it. But I want you to remember that I love you and I will always be here for you, no matter what. Nothing could change that. Okay?”

Alex tucked his phone into his pocket, finally meeting her gaze. “Am I dying?”

“What? No!  _Papito,_  why would you even–”

“I don’t know, all that stuff you were saying about being there for me was really weird. What’s going on?”

“Suddenly this feels anticlimatic.” Penelope rolled her eyes and caught Schneider grinning at her in her peripheral vision. She reached for his hand.

“I’ve been on a few dates lately, and I didn’t want to tell you and Elena about it until I knew I was going to keep seeing the guy. But I am, so. Schneider and I are dating.”

His gaze flew to their joined hands. “Oh.”

Penelope waited for what came next, comforted by the feeling of Schneider’s fingers laced through hers.

“Cool.” Alex pulled his phone back out of his pocket and prepared to check out of the conversation.

“You don’t have anything more to say?” Penelope asked after a moment.

Her son thought it over, then added, “Congratulations?”

After all her anxiety, it felt too easy.

“Alex, I meant…do you have any questions for us?”

“Oh! Yeah.”

“Great.” Penelope braced herself. “Go.”

He turned to Schneider. “Can I go use your Xbox?”

“Uh, sure, dude. You know the code.”

“Thanks!”

Alex saw Penelope gaping at him as left. “We’re done here, right, Mom? He has the giant TV.”

“Yeah, okay.” She gave up looking for trouble where apparently there was none. “Be back in time for dinner.”

As soon as the front door shut behind Alex, she sank back against Schneider’s chest, letting him wrap an arm around her.

She felt him press a kiss to the top of her head. “That was too easy, right? He’s probably not ready to deal with his feelings yet. He’s gonna end up in therapy when he’s thirty-five, talking about how I abandoned him during the most complicated years of his life to hook up with the guy upstairs and he won’t be taking my calls.”

“Breathe.” Schneider chuckled. “By the time Alex is thirty-five he won’t be taking  **any**  of our calls. Kids nowadays don’t use their phones for calls if they can text. Get with the program, Pen.”

“Right.” She tipped her head back to look at him. “You really think he’s okay?”

“I do. I think if he was upset, he would tell you.”

“Okay. Well. Great. Elena will be home after dinner–you’re staying, right?”

“Wouldn’t miss it.”

“Then we can wrap this all up with her.”

Her mom hadn’t been nearly as judgmental as Penelope had expected, deep down. And Alex had barely seemed surprised. She took a deep breath, and let it out slowly, feeling better about the day already.

Maybe she had been worried over nothing.

****

“You’re joking.” Elena looked between them that night, brow furrowed, searching for a punchline that didn’t exist.

_Okay, not the most promising start._ Penelope felt Schneider’s fingers twitch in hers and held on a little tighter.

“This–this is a joke, right? One of those jokes that isn’t funny?”

“No, Elena, this is not a joke. We’re together. I understand if this is a shock, that you may need time, but I’m completely serious right now. Schneider and I are a couple.”

“I don’t need time, Mom. Time won’t–this can’t be happening.”

There was a dull ringing in Penelope’s ears as she watched Elena turn away from her to address Schneider.

“You’re not good enough for her. I’m sorry, but you’re just not.”

Penelope flinched as though she’d been slapped. “Elena!”

“No.” She continued, apologetic but firm. “I love you. We all love you, Schneider, you know we do. You’re family. But…”

Elena sighed, switching her attention to Penelope. “Mom, you tried to keep us out of it, but I remember how it was, with  _Papi._  The drinking, and the fighting. It was so hard. Schneider hasn’t even been sober for two years yet. You’ve already been through so much. You deserve the kind of love that’s easy.”

Schneider was gripping her hand more fiercely now, just shy of turning her knuckles white. She knew him well enough to know that it wasn’t because he disagreed with Elena. It was because he agreed, and he wasn’t going to argue with her daughter, and he didn’t want her to, either.

Schneider never wanted to be the cause of family conflict, no matter how much his silence cost him. That was who he was.

But she couldn’t sit there and let him absorb Elena’s words without standing up for him. That was who  **she**  was.

Penelope nodded, squeezing Schneider’s hand before speaking.

“You’re right,  _mija_. I do deserve that. I deserve a love that isn’t a constant struggle, one that feels like roses on Valentine’s Day and breakfast in bed and winning the lottery. A love that makes me feel safe, and happy, and at home.”

“Yes.  **Exactly.** ”

Penelope turned and looked at Schneider, who wasn’t watching her while she spoke. His gaze was glued to the floor, resolutely fixed there, like even now he expected the worst.

_He should know better than that, after all they’d been through together. After all they had become to each other. But could she really blame him, when she’d never used the words?_

Penelope smiled at Schneider, waiting for him to look up. “And that’s exactly what I found.”

His eyes locked on hers, blinking owlishly like they had the first time he’d confided in her about his sobriety. She knew that Schneider wasn’t having trouble seeing her; this wasn’t about his glasses

No, he was having trouble believing what he was seeing.  _The dummy,_ Penelope added fondly in her head as he stared.

“I love him,” she told Elena.

But it was him she didn’t look away from. She didn’t want to miss the moment when it clicked. When he understood that she meant it.

"I love you too, Penelope,” Schneider said, and neither of them heard Elena’s little huff as she watched them both forget she was in the room.

He said it like he was in awe of her. Like he was grateful to be allowed to say it. 

And she knew that was the real reason Elena huffed a second time, softer now, and got up out of her chair.

This wasn’t the end of it. Penelope wasn’t stupid enough to think that it was. Elena would have more to say, there would be long talks and probably some tears and she was pretty sure she’d have to learn about some of it secondhand because her daughter and Schneider had their own, separate relationship to manage now that hers with him had changed.

But not even Elena in battle mode could miss the way Schneider looked at Penelope. Or the way his voice caressed her name, different than it used to sound. It might not have been a surrender, when Elena stood and tucked her hair behind her ears, but it was at least a white flag.

“Well, since clearly neither of you are going to listen to a word I say after that, I’m going to my room. But Schneider?”

He cleared his throat and straightened up. “Yes.”

“I know that recovery is hard. I read all the literature I could find, when–you know.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m really glad you’re trying, though. I don’t want to see anybody…get hurt.”

“Elena, I promise you–the last thing I want to do is hurt your mom. Or you. Ever again. But you’re right, I don’t deserve her.”

“Hey!” 

He shushed Penelope, in such an exaggerated way that even Elena cracked a smile.

“I don’t. And I wake up every day wondering how I got so lucky, that your mom loves me back. She’s the most amazing person I know. Y’know? She’s a hero.”

Elena nodded, serious again, taking in his words along with the emotion in them. “Yeah. She is.”

Penelope watched her daughter hug Schneider hard around his neck–a rare display of affection from her eldest, who had become so much more cautious since the divorce.

“Besides,” Elena added cheerfully before she left them alone, “if there’s one thing I know for sure, it’s that if you do hurt her…Mom can kick your ass.”

Schneider gulped hard, and Elena headed to her room with a lighter heart.

“She was just teasing,” he told Penelope, voice tilting up at the end. “She-she was teasing. Right?”

“Schneider, of course she was teasing you!” She kissed him, then pressed her mouth into a firm line as she pulled back. She couldn’t resist. “Probably.”

“Penelope!”

“I just had to see you turn that color.” Her grin faded as she ran a soothing hand up the nape of his neck. “Keep being you, and you won’t have to find out.” 

“Right.” 

Schneider tipped his face down to rest his forehead against hers. “Hey, Pen.”

“What?”

“We did it. We told them. And we’re okay.”

“You’re right. We are.” 

She drew out the last syllable happily, pulling away to look him in the eye.

“This calls for a celebration, don’t you think? Tomorrow morning, how about we all go out to breakfast?”

“Ooh, at a restaurant and everything? Classy. It’s a date–but only if it can be my treat.”

“For all of us? No. No way.”

“Pen, we talked about this.”

“Yes we did, and I did not agree that I was just going to sit back and let you throw your money around…”

Elena caught the end of their argument when she went to the kitchen for something to drink, pausing to watch them through the cutout.

They didn’t seem like they knew she was there, but they still sounded like… _them._

If part of her had been not just worried for her mom, but worried for all of them–worried about what this was going to change–she could feel that part of her relaxing.

In her experience, change mostly sucked.

For Schneider and her mom, though, she was willing to hope that this time wouldn’t. _Maybe this time, they’d be lucky._

Elena heard her mom laughing as she took water back to her room, and let herself believe, too.

_Maybe this time they would all be even happier than before._

**Author's Note:**

> Title borrowed from "Little Talks" by Of Monsters and Men.


End file.
